The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Land Mobile Radio (LMR) systems are deployed by organizations requiring instant communication between geographically dispersed and mobile personnel. Current LMR systems can be configured to provide for radio communications between one or more sites and subscriber radio units in the field. A subscriber radio unit (hereinafter “radio”) may be a mobile unit or a portable unit. LMR systems can be as simple as two radio units communicating between themselves over preset channels, or they can be complex systems that include hundreds of radio units and multiple sites. Typical users of LMR systems include police departments, fire departments, medical personnel, security personnel, EMS, and the military.
LMR systems are usually connected to a dispatch center, which provides functionality for call routing and interoperability between various systems and devices. FIG. 1 illustrates an example embodiment of a dispatch center 110 deployed in an LMR system, wherein the dispatch center 110 hosts multiple consoles 115, a gateway 120, and control station 125. The dispatch center 110 maintains a wired connection 130 to an LMR system 100 comprising one or more LMR sites 135. Radios 140 communicate at the LMR site 135 over radio frequency (RF) connections 145, and calls are passed to the consoles 115 over the wired connection 130 between the LMR system 100 and dispatch center 110.
If the wired connection 130 is lost, the radio calls are not received by the consoles 115. Therefore, as backup, a gateway 120 is deployed in the dispatch center 110, wherein the gateway 120 is connected to a radio or control station 125 that is capable of communicating on the system 100 with a particular TalkGroup. A dispatcher, upon recognizing being disconnected from the system 100, instructs the control station 125 to operate on a particular TalkGroup. The control station 125, through the gateway 120, provides the dispatcher a wireless connection 150 to users of the particular TalkGroup. As such, the dispatcher has access to the LMR system 100 via a wireless connection 150 for only the particular TalkGroup provided by the gateway 120 and control station 125.
The gateway 120 and control station 125 are capable of providing a dispatcher access to only one TalkGroup. Thus, to provide access to the LMR system 100 for each TalkGroup supported by the system 100, an additional gateway 120 and control station 125 is needed to support each additional TalkGroup, thereby substantially increasing operation and equipment costs. For example, to support each TalkGroup for a system having twelve channels and 100 TalkGroups, the dispatch center would require deployment of 100 gateways and 100 control stations to provide full backup console functionality. Furthermore, each gateway/control station combination is configured as a separate TalkGroup on the dispatch console 115 to distinguish them from active TalkGroups maintained between the consoles 115 and system 100, thereby increasing complexity and occupying valuable screen space on the dispatcher's console 115.